Naturally

A friend said she’d been using the Merlin app on her phone to ID bird calls, but the frogs and toads called so emphatically, it left the app confounded. When I started leading birding trips, people carried binoculars and spotting scopes. More cameras became included. While leading a busload of birders recently, some depleted their phone batteries while using Merlin.
Brown noise
I’ve heard people call the brown thrasher (state bird of Georgia) the “brown thrush.” An intriguing call of this inventive songster sounds like a loud smacking kiss. It sings, "Plant a seed, plant a seed, bury it, bury it, cover it up, cover it up, let it grow, let it grow, pull it up, pull it up, eat it, eat it."
A thrasher greets the day on my deck rail each morning. It’s not an eponymic, so its name need not be changed unless it was named for Buster Brown. Its name could be the brown-rufous-cinnamon-rust-umber-white-gray-burnt sienna-cream-reddish-brownish-red-black-yellow-foxy thrasher. The yellow for its eyes. It’s just a thought.

Canada geese

I walked around Lake Sagatagan at the St. John’s Abbey Arboretum. A family of Canada geese (Ma, Pa and five goslings) moved toward the water. One baby had difficulty climbing over the trunk of a fallen tree. To the gosling, it was Mt. Everest. It cried. The gander walked back to see if he could help and stepped onto the log just as the gosling reached the summit. The gander’s big foot landed directly on top of the little fellow. More crying ensued. They both shuffled into the water, appearing no worse for the wear, but I expect the gosling had nightmares.
There was a traffic jam in Waseca. Waseca isn’t a big city, so its traffic jams generally involve farm equipment. The cause of this one was a large gaggle of Canada goose parents and their goslings traveling from feeding along the railroad tracks to a lake. I saw molt flights northward of nonbreeding and failed breeding Canada geese in late May and early June. In early to mid-June, adult geese molt and cannot fly for about a month. If the adult geese have goslings, the goslings are unable to fly until around mid-July when they’re 8 to 12 weeks old. The geese breed when two or three years old. If all of those non-breeding birds spent the summer with the breeding population, it’d stress the resources needed to raise the next generation. They need a secure area to undergo a molt and molting in a flock provides security.

Meadowlark melodies

A male western meadowlark has serious pipes and sings to defend his nesting territory and attract a mate. There is a thunderclap in the decibel level of his song. I drove down a gravel road and thought I heard a western meadowlark singing in my backseat—it was that loud. Its paean came at full tilt from its fence post perch along the road. The meadowlark wore a brilliant yellow vest marked with a black V-shaped bib worn under a brown tweed jacket. Meadowlarks made a good impression on me when I was a boy. Like all good Minnesotans, I enjoy driving around with my windows rolled down, although there’s not much rolling required anymore. I don’t want to miss any windchills or comforting songs of western meadowlarks, which Donald Culross Peattie called “the most joyful voice in all the world of birds.”
Born Meadow George Lemon, he adopted the name “Meadowlark” because of its “sweet happy song.” His first basket was fashioned from a coat hanger and onion sack, and an empty tin can was the ball. Meadowlark Lemon was the Clown Prince of Basketball and the star of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Q&A

“What’s a group of warblers called?” Collective nouns for warblers are a bouquet, confusion, fall, flock or wrench.
“When do turtles lay their eggs, and why am I seeing baby turtles now?” Most of Minnesota’s nine species of freshwater turtles lay their eggs from late May through June. Sadly, 80-90% of the nests are predated, most in the first couple of days before the scent of the freshly laid eggs diminishes. The sun warms the eggs. If the nest isn’t in a sunny spot, the turtles hatch later in the fall and stay underground until spring.
“Is there a queen bird?” There are king penguins, king vultures, king eiders, kingfishers, kingbirds and kinglets. The Carola’s parotia is sometimes called Queen Carola’s parotia.

Thanks for stopping by

“Here is the great privilege at every person living in the present possesses: We are entitled to enjoy all the advances of the past 300 years of society and civilization, and yet we are not required to pay one iota for that enjoyment.”–Michael Garry.
“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.”—James Thurber.
Do good.

©️Al Batt 2024

Eastern chipmunks and 13-lined ground squirrels have grayish- or reddish-brown fur. Chipmunks are about 10 inches long, and ground squirrels 11 inches—including tails. The 13-lined ground squirrel has stripes that extend to its head. Only the body of a chipmunk displays stripes. Their 13 stripes (seven dark brown and six tan) give the ground squirrels (striped gophers) their name. The darker stripes usually have tan spots. Chipmunks have five broad stripes alternating between dark and light. Photos by Al Batt.